Jul

20

Here are a few tennis notes to myself, following up on a match that I lost 6-0, 6-0 on Friday. Hope springs eternal.

–Whatever the virtues and drawbacks of the backhand slice, I need to have one when I'm in a defensive situation. However, my slices too often end up being either high floaters or direct dispatches to the bottom of the net. In retrospect, I think I need to close up that racquet face. Federer's slice (video on subscription site www.tennisplayer.net) uses just an ever-so-slightly open face. Tonight I was practicing with a nerf tennis ball in the basement, and that does seem to improve things.

–I have ongoing indecision about whether to try to hit forehands with the Western/semi-Western grip or with a Continental, McEnroe style. The Continental grip seems so relaxed and smooth, with my body motion so in tune with the swing. (See McEnroe vid) My stroke with a western grip too often feels like a flail, and I sometimes frame it. I can't even get a good mental image of what the western forehand "should" feel like. The Continental shot, however, is difficult if the ball is high, and furthermore my coach tells me that it doesn't have as much on it. The Eastern grip is sort of in-between these two alternatives, so it should be a reasonable compromise, but for whatever reason, I tend to hit the ball way too high, and out, with it.

–Sweat! Despite using a sweatband, towels, and brand-name overgrip, my palms was profusely sweaty, which did nothing for my confidence. After the match I bought all the anti-sweat paraphernalia that I could find– the Prince Grip Plus Enhancer, a Gamma Tacky Towel, and a rosin bag. I don't yet have any data on whether these will help.

–The Serve. The serve was problematic. Oh heck, it was awful. The serve is the hardest shot of all. The crazy thing is that the ball is above your head, but you need to hit it with topspin. Often the textbooks say things that can't possibly be correct, such as "Hit the ball at the highest point of your racquet's arc." At the highest point in its arc, the racquet's vertical component of velocity is zero by definition, and so you'd never impart any topspin to the ball if you did that literally. Several times during my tennis life I got to the point of having a good or even very good serve, but if and when I ever stopped playing for even a few weeks I always lost it and had to totally, painfully rediscover it.

Nick White comments:

Two interesting points…it seems grip is foundational to everything. What's the starting grip in the market? Could we call it approach (ie, quant, fundamental, ta etc)

Second point: in the link for Winning Ugly, Google Books also recommends Michel Foucault– an interesting suggestion, though not as oblique as it first seems. I presume this association comes from the foundational premise that if one wishes to improve their game, one must first prove the ball actually exists.

The more frightening recommendation was "Marxism and Psychoanalysis". Either the algorithms need some serious tweaking or the programmers have a sense of humour.

Kevin Depew adds:

I believe your "market grip" is your capital relative to your ability to defend it; hence, the ghetto slang word "grip," what you're holding of value which Dr. Dre, for one, intends to take by "jacking little homies for they grip." But that's just one man's interpretation, obviously.